Eric Foster
New member
A local lady called last Monday who had lost a ring on a nearby beach. She was asking about hiring a detector for the day, but apparently she had never used a metal detector before. I eventually agreed to spend a couple of hours doing the search, and it was also an opportunity to give the Goldscan 5 another run. One useful feature of the GS 5 is that it would eliminate most iron and unsuitable non-ferrous targets. The ring was described a white platinum, which I assume is an alloy of silver and platinum, with five diamonds, so it was certainly worth searching for.
The beach is quite a secluded one with 20-30 minutes walk along narrow footpath to get to it. The lady knew exactly where she was sitting, as there is a windbreak made of stones up on the dry sand. On reaching the beach she realised that it was foolish to be wearing the ring, so she took it off and put it in a zipped pocket on the side of a coolbag which contained her lunch. On reaching home later that day she found the ring gone, and a split in the bottom of the zipped pocket. I pointed out that the ring could have dropped out anywhere, from on the beach and along the gravelled and grassy footpath, back to the car.
She had brought another ring of similar material and cross section, but without any diamonds. I tested it and it gave a clear high tone. As the ring was lost only the previous day it was likely to be near the surface, so I used an 8in coil, instead of the standard 11in. In the area of the windbreak there were almost no signals, and the few that I did find were too deep to be the lost ring, or under rocks that obviously had not be moved for a long time. Nothing was dug that did not appear in the first 2 or 3 inches.
We retraced the route that she had taken across the sand back to the path, making as thorough a search as possible. There were many signals
The beach is quite a secluded one with 20-30 minutes walk along narrow footpath to get to it. The lady knew exactly where she was sitting, as there is a windbreak made of stones up on the dry sand. On reaching the beach she realised that it was foolish to be wearing the ring, so she took it off and put it in a zipped pocket on the side of a coolbag which contained her lunch. On reaching home later that day she found the ring gone, and a split in the bottom of the zipped pocket. I pointed out that the ring could have dropped out anywhere, from on the beach and along the gravelled and grassy footpath, back to the car.
She had brought another ring of similar material and cross section, but without any diamonds. I tested it and it gave a clear high tone. As the ring was lost only the previous day it was likely to be near the surface, so I used an 8in coil, instead of the standard 11in. In the area of the windbreak there were almost no signals, and the few that I did find were too deep to be the lost ring, or under rocks that obviously had not be moved for a long time. Nothing was dug that did not appear in the first 2 or 3 inches.
We retraced the route that she had taken across the sand back to the path, making as thorough a search as possible. There were many signals